Tag Archive: Hiking and climibing

After speeding away to a special assignment that includes social media, my life and my blog have been left in a dust cloud, pressed flat in the gravel like dehydrated roadkill. I worked my old job and my new job for five weeks until my work got transferred. Days never really ended. I forgot things. I needed everything to slow down. I needed a break.

And there is the crazy, polarizing presidential campaign, the racism nightmare, terrorism. The national stress level is crushing on top of too little sleep/too much work.

Thankfully, I had long ago set up a trip to Montana to visit American Prairie Reserve and Yellowstone National Park. After the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation, I wanted to visit some refuges to – you know, take public land back. Back from those cowboy hat Trojan horses funded by the resource extraction industries. The next few posts are about this trip.

What with my work-squashed neurons, I did a marginal job packing, and had to fill in a few things at Missoula. Mostly, I had enough or maybe a little much. Why I brought 3 pounds of cheese is a mystery. Simple math and consideration of cheese’s gastrointestinal effects would have fixed that.

I relax driving long distances and watching scenery slide by. It’s meditation for a former Midwestern road tripper. By the time I reached Buffalo Camp at APR’s Sun Prairie unit, my brain had emptied, and I’d heard enough farm radio to forget about the world. And I agreed with the greeting on the sign. It was good.

On cue, the Welcome Wagon bison showed me the location of my tent platform. I didn’t ask him to stay and fluff my camp pillow, but he seemed willing to linger.

Don’t worry- the deepest part is hidden on the left.

Of course, the first thing I decided to do was to cut my wrist with a knife. Because too much crazy going on. For the first time in my knife-wielding life, I reached one hand over the other to grab something and neatly sliced my skin with the upward pointed tip.

The wound wasn’t terrible, though it was a bloody mess and will leave a scar. It doesn’t really look like I tried to off myself: I would get a D- for the effort. But if that tip had been 1/4 inch lower and an inch to the right- well, that would have been pretty dicey so far away from help. I’ve been there, long ago in northern Minnesota, with knee slices, broken ankle, appendicitis, and nearest medical care 45 miles away. This one was easy, something pressure and gauze could fix once I decided to quit dripping blood on the tent and do something about it.

Finally, after setting up my temporary abode, I could stretch my legs walking out to the prairie dog town across the creek. I could watch the prairie sunset and moonrise and curl up well-insulated in my sleeping bag, ready to start exploring the next day.

Way back when, at the very start of the new millenium, I traveled to New Zealand and Tonga. The purpose was simple- a friend asked me to go to Tonga to avoid the impending Y2K disaster and greet the new year, and I didn’t even know where it was, so I said yes. To maximize the very long air travel, I took a month extra to travel in the “jump off” country- either Australia or New Zealand. Since Australia is full of poisonous, venomous, man-eating things, I decided to travel New Zealand. A now-former friend and I traveled the north and south islands in a campervan, hiking, kayaking, and camping. One of the early forays being Tongariro Crossing, in Tongariro National Park.

I remember the volcanic plateau on the North Island as a magical place, a hike across the moonscape of an explosion crater up over a ridge to see the angry colors of an earth ripped apart. It was a long hike, I recall, and rugged, but beautiful dropping over the ridge to Red Crater and the Emerald Lakes.

When my application for the International Conference for Interpretation was accepted, I had the perfect opportunity to go back to the Crossing, this time with a digital camera to capture the magic and colors. I have pictures of that 2000 trip somewhere tucked away in an album, in a box, in the back of a closet.

And I need to find them now, because something has changed. I have, surely, 16 years older, with an engineered hip and a decade and a half of wear on a body never built for what I’ve put it through. But I expected that. It’s the Crossing itself that’s changed, by people and for people.

The first warning came in the form of signs in National Park Village. Shuttle rides advertised everywhere. Forgot your gear? We rent jackets and boots and packs and trekking poles.

The nice staff at the Park Hotel said, “Oh, you were here when it was a tramp. Now it’s just a walk, really. But the weather can go quite bad.”

Once you get on the trail, signs let you know exactly how long you’ll take to get anywhere.

And a sign acts as a stern parent in case you’ve forgotten your galoshes- or in the case of the wispy lady who streamed by it, if you’re heading up on a socked in day in sparkly keds, skinny jeans, with your iPod and earbuds and k-pop still audible to the world.

The thousands of stairs painstakenly laid to make travel safer caused pain for any of us with old joints and fake parts. Two tough ladies in their 70’s trooped up the trail, but cursed the stairs on their way out.

I was lucky to be there in the “slow” season. There were a fair number of travelers, but only a small fraction of the 4500 my shuttle driver said streamed over the trail on Waitangi Day. “Queues at the loos, lines at the steep bits,” he said. “It’s the thing you do in New Zealand,” said the nice Irish lady at the hotel desk. “You check in to National Park one day, do the hike the next, complain if the weather’s bad, then leave the following morning.” The Department of Conservation changed the name in 2007 to the Tongagiro Alpine Crossing to stress the potential danger, but perhaps to no avail.

Well, I’d taken five days to hike, and I could wait for a chance of decent weather. I hiked it on Day 3. It was socked in at the South Crater, but suddenly a chill wind swept across the crater and the ridge came into view. The clouds continued to depart in the stiff breeze, unveiling the rich volcanic colors under bluebird skies at the Red Crater.

The descent was indeed a walk- I did it in my runners to give my feet a break. On the way, I stopped to take photos of the Te Maari crater, the latest eruption site from 2012. A ranger passing by volunteered the story and pointed out where the lahar had destroyed vegetation in its path. I commented that this volcano complex was far more angry and volatile than our Mt. St. Helens. “We like our volcanoes lively here,” he said. Traveling through the lahar zone at the bottom, I could see he was right.

I hope the crowds see this terrain for its mercurial power and grandeur, an abstract painting of the earth turning itself inside out. I hope they look at the view behind the selfie and beyond the congratulatory t-shirt and the Lord of the Rings filming locations. This hike was was a measure of how much I’ve changed, and how much the way we play has changed. I won’t go back- there are beautiful places more remote and peaceful to challenge my ageing bones, but the amazing volcanic landscape won me over again.

Stairs everywhere

South Crater, clouds clearing in the cold wind

South Crater, socked in as the wind kicks up

The “duh” sign

From the ridge between the South and Red Craters: the Plains of Gorgoroth from Lord of the Rings

Selfies by Mt. Doom- uh, Mt. Ngauruhoe, sorry

Red Crater ridge- people on the right give it scale

Close up view of Red Crater dike formation- a beauty!

Red Crater dike- a lava tube out of which oozed the lava hardened across the Central Crater

Mt. Ngauruhoe-hard to think of it as only a parasitic cone of Tongariro, but that’s what the geologists say.

Peeking into the throat of the earth

The only gamey part, volcanic flour that’s slick from tens of thousands of feet every year. This got me more than the stairs-downhill tests proprioception altered by hip replacement surgery.

The Emerald Lakes sit in impact craters- as in, something really big bombed a hole in the earth and it filled with water and minerals that give it this wild color.

Emerald Lakes with the relatively sparse crowds of a fall day

Awesome lava creeping across the central crater

Ketatahi Hot Springs

Blue Lake, because we’re creative with names here.

Not stairs this time- erosion control, or brakes if you start skiing off the trail

The descent was civilized enough for me to wear runners and give my feet a break

Besides working like a dog and finalizing my Certified Interpretive Trainer and Envision certifications, I am trying to get back to wilderness fitness so I can go to Baffin Island next year and backpack the Arctic Circle for 3 weeks, maybe seeing a polar bear before they all expire. I packed into the Park Butte/Railroad Grade trail in the Mt. Baker area to spend the night under a full harvest moon. The road to the trailhead is excellent, unusual for our area, and I arrived early enough to get a decent parking spot. I was intending to head for Mazama Park, but a sign at the trailhead indicated it wasn’t available for camping due to a youth group. I signed up for Cathedral Camp on my pass, not sure what I would find.

It’s not terribly far to get to a campsite, but the trail gets steep in one section. In this area, I ran into two groups of young guys in camo with firearms, learning later they had arrived for the high country bear hunt. The first group said they found a spot on Railroad Grade and thought there was at least a site or two open. I figured I would try that first, and go on to Cathedral if nothing worked.

Awesome idea for a seasonal bridge where they wash out constantly

I grabbed the first site on the Grade, a great camping platform under some lovely mountain hemlock trees with a great view of the mountain. The only better site I found in the area was the one closest to the moraine trail, a similar platform but with an even better view. Since it was warm and dry, and unlike most of Washington, almost bug-free, so I brought my little lightweight Marmot Starlight shelter (more a glorified bivouac bag than tent).

My lovely little campsite

The camp was above a lovely meadow and stream for water, with vibrant pink heather and pretty purple lupine in bloom. The lack of bugs was a blessing at this time in the Cascades, as was relative relief from smoke of the raging wildfires scorching Washington.

I hiked the first day to the Climber’s Camp along Railroad Grade. There are high country camps here, lovely but less private than my modest camp. I’ve climbed Baker 18 years ago by this route. I liked the Coleman route better since it was less crowded. This route has a reputation for crowds, but it was not bad early on as I walked uphill. A climbing couple passed me, and two women with packs.

Backpackers headed for the high camps

I walked the very narrow trail on the eroded lateral moraine that embraced a once-mighty glacier. It’s stunning how far the glacier has receded, leaving the cavernous moraine to crumble into the void. The trail leads to “Sandy Camp” where a group of youth hosted by North Cascades Institute were spending the weekend. Some had never been to wilderness before, nor ever camped. They were having a superb time, skimming the snowfields and studying the world.

I chatted with two rangers, Julie and Vilay, who were going to give the youth group a talk. Vilay was enjoying a break from her deployment as a fire ranger in the wildfire plagued areas of Eastern Washington. She said the air quality was better here, and her cough was going away. She had never backpacked before- but it was growing on her. They were dividing their time between the youth group putting in the pit toilet in Mazama Park, and the group at Climber’s Camp.

I took shelter in the lee of a rock, since the wind sweeping off the glaciers was quite cold on an 80 degree day in the mountains, and took pictures of crevasses in the Easton Glacier.

This is late in the season, when crevasses are usually visible, but higher up, I could see a light snow layer over the surface. I noticed that a group that seemed to be guided (in identical tents, and herded like cattle) climbed in the evening. I wondered if they avoiding icy conditions that can become a sliding hazard if a climber slips. Even skilled climbers have lost footing on August ice and careened down a slick glacier surface to their deaths.

Juba Skipper, first time I’ve seen one

Fritillary- maybe Arctic female, not sure

Checkerspot on penstemon

What was most interesting to me, now that I’ve become older and distinctly batty, were the butterflies fiercely defending their patch of greenery and trying to complete a life cycle in the short alpine summer. At one point, I saw clouds of checkerspots rising in a tornado against an invading Western white.

And there were marmots- now dwindling in number, but according to Julie the Ranger, who does surveys, stable in this area at 46. It’s hot for them, and I see a mother chillin’ on the snow, sprawled out while her baby tried to get her to come feed or nap in the den. People are up here with dogs, and hopefully keeping them in check. Julie says that marmots are suffering on the busy Skyline Divide Trail, possibly because of disturbance. Later, I hear some kids whistling at them, and then passing the “trail closed” sign into marmot territory, which gets them calling. Come on, folks- teach your kids better manners. If they’re picking on animals at this age, they’ll be torturing people later on.

The night was lovely, with moonlight bathing the mountain and meadows and all of us sleeping beneath it. I woke at one point to tremendous rock or ice fall, sounding like thunder in the night. It happened twice in short order, suggesting maybe a serac went tumbling and took a buddy with it. A couple folks I talked to the next day said the sound woke them, too, and they thought there might even be an earthquake.The next morning I left my camp set up and hiked to the Park Butte fire lookout. The morning light illuminated fields of pink heather still in bloom. The trail winds up a rock garden and past two tarns, then winds around a bluff and approaches the lookout on a ledge.

Marmot announcing my presence

Marmots chillin’ on a hot day.

View from Park Butte Lookout

Heather meadows as the sun comes up

Trail to Park Butte lookout

Bear, not being able to open her eyes to the vertiginous view

At the lookout, I met a dog- probably a Staffordshire bull terrier- named Bear. Bear was an older dog who couldn’t bear to look at the dizzying view, and would stand on the stairs, or preferably my feet, with her eyes closed to feel secure. Bear was lucky she was a dog when the two groups of hunters on the high country black bear hunt had passed the day before. The nice young men were all dressed in Cabelas best- camo from head to foot and guns carried in safety position. They actually missed the black bear that the lookout overnighters and several campers saw. All the campers were happy that the bear lived to see another day.

On the way down, I followed the nice young women I met the day before, cousins. One worked for North Cascades Institute, the other was a piano repairwoman. They were typical of the great young gals I meet now in the backcountry: free-spirited, happy,but and independent, loving the outdoors and their lives. It gives my heart a lift to see this change- there is a light of hope for us women after all, and we are that light.

This was the trip I tried to do last year with my friend Brenda when she became injured. This year, I was fortunate to have the company of Michelle, a new friend from the National Association of Interpretation training I attended. Michelle’s easy-going partner Jamie couldn’t make it due to work, unfortunately for him as he would have enjoyed the fly-fishing.

I did what is becoming a routine: drove to Montana to decompress on the road, stopping overnight at the Motel 6 in Missoula, and then heading to Yellowstone the next day. That drive appeals to the Midwestern road-tripper in me, and lets me unwind from work, which is crazy right now. The big scenery spins by the windshield and I daydream and listen to music cruising along Interstate 90, eventually leaving the to-do list and worries behind. Why the Motel 6? Dunno, started out there, and it’s become a habit. I learned this time that the 3rd floor smells a lot like cigarette smoke (1st floor doesn’t), but I sleep well anyway.

Montana experienced an unusually rainy August and September, creating lovely color along the drive. There were black-eyed Susan flowers blooming on the roadside, and the hills were green-gold instead of the rich yellow I saw the last couple autumns. Aside from a little haze coming from Washington’s wildfires, the sky is clear this time.

I arrived to an unusually busy fall crowd, rushing into the closest campground, Norris, just before it filled. This turned out to be a good choice, since Steamboat Geyser in the Norris Geyser Basin erupted the day before for the first time in years and was marked by a towering plume typical of the steam phase that lasts 24-48 hours after an eruption.

Steamboat Geyser, about 30 hours after eruption

Norris Campground is by a historic ranger station that is still beautiful in its creative and sturdy construction, with a trail leading to the Norris Geyser Basin. It also has a great staging area for talks, and the night’s heavily attended ranger presentation was on the night sky. The growing moon made it difficult to see stars, but it is the first time I understood anything about them from the stories the ranger told. She brought a laptop and volunteers brought telescopes, through which you could see the rings of Saturn and craters of the moon. My little Canon didn’t do too badly photographing the moon, either.

The beautiful moon

It was a cold night, registering about 24 degrees, but I was prepared and slept well in my reliable old North Face tent, which has accompanied me on adventures for 20 years. The next morning, I met up with Michelle in West Yellowstone and we headed for Grant Village to pick up permits, day hike, and camp one more night before heading out. I’m a sea level gal, and Yellowstone is at altitude, so this acclimation period is necessary before shouldering a heavy pack and heading uphill.

We traveled to Pelican Valley, lovely but notorious for a rare, unprovoked fatal attack on a lone woman camper in 1986 by a grizzly bear that was never found. Camping is no longer allowed in the valley, and people are supposed to enter only after 9 a.m. and leave before dusk. We saw a lone hiker, the seasonal employee that often becomes the victim of bear attacks by traveling alone, or sometimes, as we saw later, the lost hiker separated from a group of other inexperienced seasonal employees.As if to make a point, a grizzly left a pile of scat at the trailhead, full of elk hair. A track followed not much further. Wolf tracks also appeared, suggesting the wolves might have taken down the elk, and a grizz took the carcass over, as they will do. We also found scratches on trees from grizzlies marking, or perhaps trying to beat up the trees, as they will sometimes do in frustration when they are disrespected by a bigger bear.

Pelican Valley

Michelle said Pelican Valley was once the last holdout for the 25 remaining bison of 65 million that once roamed the U.S. Those 25 were brought to Lamar Buffalo Ranch to become the herd of 4000+ that exist today. If the bison had more room to roam, there would be many more than 4000; currently, culling is used to control numbers. Pelican Valley is perfect for wildlife, with water, grasslands, and trees for shade and hiding predators.

The next morning we headed out on the Heart Lake Trail. We had divided food and common supplies, with Michelle bringing real food for lunches and dinners. I got a great education on backcountry cooking, which I stink at, relying on freeze-dried and instant food that inevitably makes me lose my appetite when I really need to be eating. We reached Paycheck Pass below Factory Hill and stopped for snacks, Michelle’s application of blister treatment and geyser investigation. Heart Lake was visible in the distance, but still 2 miles off, with our first campsite another mile further.

The Heart Lake area was subject to the historic 1988 wildfires and several since, with the mosaic burn pattern typical of these fires. Why some trees live and others burn is dependent on microconditions in the burn area. Since wildfires are nowhere to be when they are burning, only distant detection methods help to figure out wind speed, air temperature and moisture, and ground heat. The fire snags can be quite lovely in the right light, gleaming silver like a valuable statue rather than a long-dead trees.

Mud pot, Paycheck Pass

The geyser basin at Paycheck Pass includes a mudpot, a superheated soup of dirt and mineral that bubbles and pops thick muddy bubbles. These are the most entertaining thermal features to me, with no spectacular explosions of water, but a constant burbling chatter only they can understand. It sounds like some sort of gnome lives within them, stirring the pot and grumbling.

Even though you can see Heart Lake from the pass, it’s still 2 miles, and then for us, another mile and change to campsite 8H3. We were happy to be in camp, setting up for the first night. Michelle scouts a tent site in the grass because the established tent sites are all really close to the bear pole, a typical set up by the Park Service even though they want you 100 yards downwind of your food. Michelle cooked pasta for dinner and we retired early, with a big moon rising and a sound of distant elk bugling.

The next morning we set out to summit Mt. Sheridan, about 3.9 miles and 3000 feet gain, to top out at 10,300 feet or thereabouts. The trail is really nice, good footing even when it’s steep, despite the bad rap it gets from my guidebook. It travels through an old burn, where we hear branches snapping, then silence as we listen. Later, we learn another party has spied a grizzly on the slopes of Sheridan, and at the end, rangers tell us the bear is a fixture there. No worries for us: it is a good huckleberry season. The weather is cool and windy, which saves us on the ascent. The trail finally winds around the back of the shoulder through lovely alpine meadows, and then makes the final climb to the summit and lookout.

Trail to summit of Mt. Sheridan

The slopes going around the lookout appear barren from a distance, but we see lovely rock gardens full of flowers. We find no one at the summit and have a great lunch of burritos and fruit and nuts, taking pictures of the huge view, our route around Heart Lake, and the flowers. There is even a picnic bench on the summit. Mt. Sheridan marks the south end of the Yellowstone volcano caldera, and Mt. Washburn, visible from here, marks the north. We can see Yellowstone Lake, which has volcanic features under the water, and Shoshone and Lewis Lakes as well. Grand Teton and its companions are in view but obscured by the weather they are kicking our way. I learn that the Teton Range whips us a lot of storms with heavy lightning, explaining what Brenda and I experienced last year. The weather spins our way, but we don’t get overtaken during our break on the summit.

We descend and suddenly run into three groups. The first, in very trendy trail clothes, tells us they saw the grizz. “Awesome!” I say. “Michelle heard a stick snap- must have been him.” The lead guy says, “Well, be careful. There’s eight of us,” as if to imply that the bear is back there counting heads and will leap out to eat us because we’re a party of two. We run into a party of two, but since the older gentleman looks distinctly unhappy with the elevation or strenuousness, I don’t want to add to his troubles with talk of a grizz.

The day heated up as we ascended, so we shed clothes. We’decided to stop at the geyser basin, which I need to do to wrap a blister. At the geyser basin, we hang out and wait for Rustic Geyser to erupt, which happens about every 20 minutes, and take pictures of the lovely blue geyser pool nearby, where a boneyard eerily decorates the sediments under the superheated water. An elk or moose appears to have fallen in, perhaps being chased, or just starving or ill. Rustic is really a fun geyser to watch. The water rises and recedes ominously a few times, and then, on a recession, suddenly it bursts in big, successive burps of steam and water before abruptly stopping again. Later, Michelle reads that the odd shape was created by Native Americans, who squared it up with logs around the rim; the logs are now covered in sinter. Interestingly, the plumbing for Rustic geyser and an adjacent geyser must be connected, because this more modest feature starts to bubble and burp and overflow after Rustic erupts. This is common, and in fact, when we visited Steamboat Geyser to see the steam phase before we went on our hike, Cistern Geyser was empty, as will occur when Steamboat erupts. No one understands the Yellowstone geysers well; Michelle says only Old Faithful has been subjected to video in vents in between eruptions.

The ground around these geysers can be very dangerous, and you have to pick your way through, checking for soft spots and cavities to make sure you’re not going to plunge into a superheated pool and scald your feet. It happens. I don’t want to be the next to fall in a lovely but deadly pool, so I’m careful.

Remains of victim, Heart Lake Geyser Basin

We hobble back to camp for a good night’s sleep and get ready to hike to Basin Lake the next day. The night is cold, in the 20’s. but the sun comes up and warms the next morning with beautiful light. We take pictures, filter water, pack up, and head out around the lake. Just as we enter the forest, there are a marmot eating berries and a pika nearby, harvesting hay. We find scratches way up a tree- not the climbing type, but the very-tall-bear type.

I backpack the next couple days in my Keen sandals to give my blister a chance to heal, which works marvelously. Michelle ditches her new insoles, since they have helped create her blister, and does fine.

Grizzly track, Snake River, where there was day-old scat and a day bed

The trail travels through nice shady forest and then breaks out in some big grassy flats and wetlands. We have a little trouble finding the turn to Basin Lake, since there is no sign, but a wide, pummeled trail going the opposite direction to an outfitter camp full of horse crap. We double back and then find our camp. The camp at Basin Lake is really our best, with space to spread out, no rampant outfitter signs, and peace. In the morning, I see a pine marten, and we hear the echoing calls of sandhill cranes as they do practice laps in preparation for their winter migration.

Our next couple days are also marked by birds- a pair of sandhill cranes in every basin we pass, grouse blowing out of the grass unexpectedly, sapsuckers hammering holes in trees, and red-tailed hawks. Flocks of robins hang around patches of huckleberries, perched in fire-killed trees, looking fat and content.

Sandhill crane stalking food, trail to Basin Creek Lake

The river fords are cold, but Michelle is able to fish at our next crossing of the Snake River, and even gives me fly fishing lessons. I do not of course catch a thing, but get a feel for how different the cast is from the mighty salmon cast I use to fish on my river. During the trip, she catches (and releases) five fish- two native cutthroat, a rainbow, a brown trout, and a cutbow (rainbow/cutthroat hybrid).

We reluctantly leave and hike on a cold morning to our next camp at the outlet of Heart Lake. The weather is turning, and Michelle does her usual routine of cleaning up a bad fire ring while I help gather kindling. In Washington, I just don’t start fires, what with the scarcity of wood in the alpine areas and the fire danger. It’s low fire danger here, and the burn areas provide an abundance of firewood without compromising the environment. At night, we hear elk bugling, one quite close to our camp. We expect it to snow that night, but it waits until we hike out, a long day of 12 miles. We stop at the Heart Lake Ranger station on the way out and eat a snack sheltered from the increasingly cold wind. Snowflakes start falling, then become thicker. Michelle does the right thing and stops us at Paycheck Pass to eat hot quesadillas in the snow before we continue the slog out to the parking area. We’re actually stopped by two rangers on the way out, one an enforcement ranger, and asked to show our camping permit. They ask us if we’ve seen an Eastern European girl traveling alone, separated from her group. We say no, only one guy going in, and a couple coming out. Michelle tells me it’s likely a seasonal employee- they head out into the backcountry and go astray, with alcohol as an occasional culprit. Michelle said they can’t be too worried, or they would have the cavalry out, not just two rangers.

Heart Lake Ranger Station

We’re finally at the car. I’ve done well, with only tired feet. We stop at Grant Village for showers, which feel really good after six days with minimal cleaning and no hair-washing (hats are a critical item on these trips). We both waste lots of hot water since there is no time limit on showers.

The next night was going down to 15 degrees, so I camped on Jamie and Michelle’s couch, sported for pizza dinner, and the next day, decided to check out the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone before I started the drive home. The Center is a non-profit that houses renegade bears and wolves that can’t go back to the wild and does some great education. The bears also help testing out bear containers and finding whether they really work or not. This center is the polar opposite of the notorious bear mills, that raise cubs and when they stop being cute, butcher the animals for medicinal parts and hide, or allow canned hunts for $20,000 or more to fake sportsmen.

Grizzly playing with tree, Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center

The bears and wolves are managed in natural habitats. The bears get trees to maul, a pool of trout to fish, and food cached by staff in different places around their habitat each time before they are released into the enclosure, so they can do what they would naturally do in the wild. The bears are turned out alone (for the largest, Sam) or in groups that get along. Education includes a house front and garden with bear no-no’s, a display of bear-destroyed trash containers, a bad campsite, and better ways to protect gardens, chicken coops, and animal pens. Inside, the Center has more conventional displays with the biology and ecology of bears, threats like poaching, and the history of bears in North America, including recovery efforts. And then, there are the rehabilitating birds- injured animals that do a job in raptor displays as ambassadors and educators. The Center is working to add more bear habitat and a riparian display, an ambitious project with underwater viewing areas and river otters, expected to be completed 2020. I really enjoyed the center, spending a good three hours there, and would gladly return for another visit. I donated to support Acadia, a rescued saw-whet owl, before I left.

All in all, this was one of the most peaceful vacations I have enjoyed in recent years, and I felt quiet inside as I drove home. The weather cooperated, cool when we needed it, and warm at times, too. The period around the full moon was clear so we had lovely nights bathed in moonlight. I had just the right amount of energy, stamina, food, and patience for the backpack trip. We saw animals, plants, and fungi enjoying late season rains and preparing for the upcoming winter. We saw few people but a lot of nature, just the way I like it!

Lenticular clouds are a bit of a warning; combined with a middling weather forecase for the day, we figured this one might be signalling rain.

For my first foray back to a mountain in crampons after seven years, I took a trip to Mt. St. Helens. After May 15, climbing permits are limited to 100/day; had I known, I would have accompanied the 500+ people who went up on a beautiful Mother’s Day in 2013, many in dresses (even men) to honor the moms of the world. I don’t expect solitude here, and actually, I prefer to see people getting into the outdoors, trying something brave and perhaps new.

The more that go, the more likely people will fall in love with the freedom of the hills and vote for wilderness, fight for access, pay for trail maintenance.

Group from Spokane descending- the gentleman pictured had a knee replacement in February.

But it seems the more people who discover an icon like Mt. St. Helens, the more people think perhaps it’s safe, marked, achievable to anyone. The guides don’t really say what you’ll run into here- an amazing mix of experienced people, inexperienced, responsible people in good company, and people whose actions reinforce how durable humans are. This mountain ain’t my first rodeo, but for me and a lot of other permit holders, the mountain in spring with changeable weather deserves respect. Scarier are the folks who are climbing in cotton- yes! with limited or no gear when the clouds, lovely though they are, sweep in with icy winds and stinging rain. I am still haunted by one girl who stumbled past our camp at timberline the first night, looking purple cheeked, disoriented, and more than a little sick, with her husband ahead asking us to lie about the miles she still had to go at 7:30 pm, and the grandpa behind merrily saying he was able to summit but had to leave her below because she was hypothermic: no wonder since as others reported, it was cloudy, windy, and cold, and she was wearing tennis shoes and cotton sweats. I hope she’s recovered, though sadly I’m guessing she will never go to the mountains again. She wasn’t the only one I worried about.But for folks who came prepared, there were smiles all round, though dubious chance of views on June 2nd. A group from Spokane passed our tent off the trail in the trees at just about the end of the treeline at 3 a.m. The NWS predicted drizzly weather overnight on June 1, but instead it was quiet and clear with dazzling stars and a sliver of a moon, and warm when we got up at 4. We passed two climbers who camped on the snow at up high, and they thought they heard rain or perhaps ice crystals falling on their tent, and felt wind at night.

High camp

Our ridge camp

There was a weather window in the morning, but suddenly the clouds rose and began towering before us. We spied a lenticular cloud toward Adams and the ring around the sun you don’t like to see.

The Spokane group was descending as we were still going up toward the false summit, and told us there was no view into the crater. We’d already gotten expansive views of the forested lowlands spreading before us, impassive Mt. Hood appearing out of the clouds, and nice views of the sculpted snowfields. So we decided the last 300 feet to see more cloud cover could wait for another day. The high campers had decided on a late start, and kept going though bummed the weather was moving in, with guidance from the Spokane leader to go only as far as the footprints because they stayed off the cornice and away from the now-invisible rim.

Sure, it wasn’t that far to go, but we figured we’d come back when there was something to see at the summit besides our own ugly mugs.

The snow got soft and sloppy as we descended; crampons that served well earlier became dangerous. We took them off and glissaded one section with decent runout when the view was good, but quit when an array of people popped up across the slopes below like bowling pins, and the boulders started decorating the borders of the path.

Mt. Adams

The camps along the ridge are great, with trees for shelter and windbreak, and nice views of the mountain- the dining room would have had a front row view of Mt. Hood on a clear day. We saw a hummingbird and later found heather in bloom as a nectar source, and some huckleberry trying to flower. A grey jay found us, and ravens patrolled. We are campers at heart, and would do this trip in the same way again, enjoying a quiet night on the mountain before summiting.

Life is great with fake parts- it’s glorious to walk in the clouds again!

Although I can say I’m experienced, I will also note I am coming back to the mountains after many years struggling with a deteriorating hip that finally crumbled and was replaced in December 2010. I was pretty muscle sore after this trip; I carried a camping pack 1700 feet up, then did 4000 feet to the turnaround, and 5700 feet downhill, the last two sections in the same day. My right hip has less range of motion now, so I couldn’t figure out how to crampon in any position but flat-footed both up and down, using the same overworked set of leg muscles. And climbing the ridge o’rubble to the snowfield wasn’t a cakewalk, either, with my sometimes dubious balance: I felt like the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz, and my cuss-like-a-sailor skills came in handy several times. But I did it: my first foray on crampons in over six years. Onward and upward! Next journey is to the Wapta Icefields to go back to basics and take an Intro to Mountaineering course and get roped. And next year, I’m back on Mother’s Day in a gown and tiara to go with my boots and crampons. . . .

Remember, fellow hikers~ a fed goat is a dead goat. While these mountain goats and their eight compadres were highly entertaining, they had clearly been fed or allowed to lick people for the salt in sweat. Ignore them as they patrol for your lunch and let them avoid getting in trouble that will inevitably get them “removed” by the services.

So would the Forest Service be mad if I posted a giant sign at the trailhead saying, “A FED GOAT IS A DEAD GOAT”? There is a sign at the trailhead warning people about dangerous goats with their lethal pointy horns, but no sign posted saying why the goats have gotten so aggressive. That would be us, my friends. More on goats later.

We decided to try Lake Ingalls on a day with promise of views of Mt. Stuart. In all the time I’ve been here, I’ve seen Stuart, and been up it on a clear day, but every time I’ve brought someone else, it’s been cloudy at the top. Not so today.

The parking lot was very full, but surprisingly, there were few people on the Lake Ingalls trail. Perhaps most were headed for Esmeralda Basin. The hike up was easy most of the way, crossing softening avalanche fans a couple miles up. There is a profusion of spring beauty flowers and some glacier lilies, meaning the real flower show is yet to come. It was a perfect day temperature wise, with a light wind to keep us cool.

Past the intersection with Longs Pass, the trail cuts into a basin that was snow covered for the most part. We picked our way up and stopped for views, only to have a goat leap past us and then circle around to a rocky outcrop. Two guys had just come down over the rocks, and three folks were on their way up, so we figured they had spooked the goat.

Then we got up to the camp area below the pass and there was an adolescent goat checking out four unoccupied tents. Another adult was wandering the snowfields. We proceeded up to the pass on snow to the area where people like to picnic and decided to stop and enjoy the highly unusual solitude and lovely views of Mt. Stuart and the basin.

Suddenly, we saw a herd of 10 goats start up from Headlight Basin toward our locale. We were thrilled as they formed a line and ascended the slopes – and surprised as they came over the rocks toward us- and then we were scrambling to pick up our lunch as they streamed over the ridge right past us, pinning us to the edge. Two woolly babies bleated in protest throughout the promenade past us, but their mothers looked pretty determined to make us drop our granola bars.

Yes, they’re cute, but their mamas have giant horns.

The goats made patrols and passes for over an hour, sometimes hovering on the rocks above. Clearly, they associate people with food. I have never seen this behavior, but after reading the warning from the Park Service about NOT LETTING THE GOATS LICK PEOPLE’S HANDS AND ARMS at Mt. Ellinor, I figured these goats had been corrupted like the red foxes at Mt. Rainier that get too many balogna sandwiches and then get smashed on the road hanging out for more handouts. We ignored the goats and they eventually dispersed, leaving us to rest in the sun and enjoy a light nap until- BAAA! There was a goat baby and mom right above us. Yikes. We watched some scramblers coming down the gully between South and North Ingalls peaks and finally shook ourselves out of our pleasant little spot, which not another person had visited in over two hours.

So Ingalls Pass is an excellent place to see mountains and mountain goats, but please please please don’t feed them or let them lick your arms. Wildlife always pays the price for human indulgence in the end.